Title: My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lvl999 Vol. 3
Author: Mashiro
Publisher: Inklore
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Romance
Publication Date: October 1, 2024
The Story
We open up with our “mystery character” aka… Takuma, Akane’s ex, pays her an unexpected visit which serves as the cliffhanger at the end of volume two. Here, Yamada answered the door and, apparently, he gets nervous seeing him there. Given the fact that he’s a huge fan of his, it didn’t help matters either. He simply wanted to drop off some food containers that had piled up from back when he and Akane were dating. After a quick exchange, Yamada accepted the containers and Takuma was on his way.
Feeling guilty that Eita (Princess Ruri) gave her the parts to fix her computer, Akane gets a part-time job at a convenience store to save up money to pay him back. The manager of the convenience store makes it pretty clear that she’ll probably be called in more often than not as she is always short-staffed and with her both living and going to college relatively close by to the store, it makes it easy for her to get called upon and throughout the volume she does… a lot.
Meanwhile, Runa is upset because Yamada invited a brand-new girl to the guild. Just like Runa tried to do with Akane, she devised a plan to try and chase her out; however, Akane gives her a verbal karate chop to the head and gets her to reconsider her plans. The person that Yamada invited is a brand-new character named Yukari Tsubaki. She shares a long history with Yamada and this volume dives deep into that history which not only gives her some background information but also get a bit of a reason as to why Yamada is the way he is. Now that she’s part of the guild, she’s being encouraged to pursue her feelings for Yamada before someone else steals him away…
…However, something happens and she might be too late!
Characters
There was a lot of development happening this time around so let’s dive into it!
First off, Akane x Yamada got a nice big nudge in the right direction. Akane (and the guild) were invited to the culture festival at Yamada’s school. Here I was thinking that since Akane was in college, we could escape the dreaded culture festival trope but nope… Yamada’s school had to have one; however, it was handled a bit differently. Here, it focused way more heavily on the development of the characters rather than the festival itself. This is where we start to see some of the jealousy that Yukari develops when she sees Akane and Yamada together. Add in the fact that Eita started a joke about Yamada possibly dating Akane which led to her getting super flustered and running away, you have the beginnings of a delicious main dish that we call Main Character Ship.
Yamada ends up saying a smooth line which causes Akane’s heart to flutter but nothing comes of it and it shouldn’t since we’re only in the third volume of this series. There are 70+ chapters to go until we get caught up to the Japanese releases and it’s on indefinite hiatus over there (get well soon, Mashiro-sensei!) so I wouldn’t expect a ship just yet but we’re seeing the humble beginnings of it and it’s rather cute. This is the stage of all slice-of-life romance stories where the main characters begin the process of analyzing their feelings and eventually coming to a conclusion.
Speaking of Yamada… without going into spoilers, we did get to see his past with Yukari and how they came to know each other. In that same process, we learned about how Yukari developed her feelings for him. Her personality is a bit out there as she seems super serious about things but doesn’t seem all that serious at the same time. It’s a weird balance but I think she’s just stern when she needs to be and, at other times, she’s just a normal girl. I’m enjoying her as a character so far as she’s not over the top to where she’s the symbol of a specific trope which you see far too often.
Furthermore, on Yamada, we dive deep into his past about how he helped a classmate when he was younger. The events that transpired in those flashbacks played a big part in why he won’t consider women something that he’s interested in. At the same time, it explains why he’s also kind and helpful to those around them even if he feels as if it’s a pain to do so. I wasn’t expecting this much to be revealed this soon but here we are.
Final Thoughts
This was another great volume! Not only did the story progress but we added a couple of new characters, got more than we bargained for in the character development department, and set up your classic love triangle as one would find in a slice-of-life romance series. The only problem I have is that this love triangle falls into the same problem that all other love triangles fall into. It’s a fact that it was established that this series is all about Yamada and Akane. Introducing a new character after establishing them as the main characters and trying to turn it into a love triangle is not a believable story plot.
It’s painfully obvious that Yukari has next to no chance of going out with Yamada. Had she been introduced from the very beginning and the series made it insanely vague as to who the main character truly was between her and Akane, then a love triangle would work well without insulting the readers’ intelligence; however, because she was introduced after it was well established that Yamada and Akane are going to be the main ship in the end, the “I have feelings for him, too” or “confess before it’s too late” plot points just feel so unnecessary and unbelievable.
This is a problem almost ALL slice-of-life romance manga series have whenever another female character is introduced. Oftentimes, it feels like forced, pointless drama that adds nothing to the story outside of the excuse of just adding another character. There are so many other ways to add characters without turning them into love rivals but it seems as if no mangaka has found a way to accomplish this… at least in the series that I’ve read.
Hopefully, Mashiro does something interesting with Yukari in future volumes because if she’s just here to be another background guild character after eventually getting turned down then I don’t see the point in adding her as a character in the first place. If the intent is to ship Yamada and Akane, then I would have focused my time and resources on that rather than adding Yukari. But, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll be surprised.
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